Call of the Water (COMPLETE)

14. THE POWER OF THE FULL MOON

Somehow my real parents found their way into Mathias' story. If they hadn't died, you would understand, he said.

I didn't respond, but something in the way my body reacted to his statement made him apologize. Maybe my shoulders that hunched, or maybe it was my head bowing down.

"I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry." His voice assumed a whole new tone, not at all threatening.

I lifted my head. "I still miss them. I have a new family, but I still miss my Aquantien parents."

"I know the feeling," he said. "I know what it's like to miss someone who was supposed to be a part of your life, but isn't anymore." It was his turn to bow his head.

"But your dad is still around," I stated the obvious. "He may be... different, but you still have him by your side."

"I wasn't talking about my father," Mathias said softly. He wrapped his arms around him and remained silent for a while.

"Then who?" I asked in a low voice.

He only glanced at me when he said, "My mother."

"What happened to her?" I asked although I wasn't sure that I would get an answer to that question.

"Cancer," he uttered. "Living with a werewolf proved to be a lot easier than living with that menace of the modern world. My mother first got ill when I was seven. After she spent two months at the hospital, and countless additional therapies, it seemed she was winning. But winning a battle doesn't mean you won the war. It came back only a year later, stronger and more devastating. It was her final defeat."

After saying those words, he turned his head towards the school garden outside the window. He did know what it meant to lose a parent. Although he only partially lost his father, his mother was no longer among the living.

"I'm sorry," I said softly, trying to convey my sympathy.

"She died on a rainy autumn day, with my father and I at her bedside." Mathias' eyes refused to look at anything other than the frame of a window he sat by. When he continued, it felt like he was talking to the bare-branched trees outside. "We said our goodbyes but still, grief was like a flood. Neither of us could stop it from seeping into our home. My father got quieter, I felt he distanced himself from me. With the approach of the full Moon, his restlessness grew. On the night of the full Moon he left. That time he didn't lock himself in the basement.

"I was left alone. I locked all the doors, closed all the windows, I separated myself from the rest of the world. As long as there was food in the fridge and the pantry was full, I didn't need anyone.

"My father was gone for three days before he came back home. His clothes were shabby, his eyes were red. I knew he was crying. He pulled me into his embrace harder than ever. He started to apologize, unable to forgive himself for leaving me all alone. He promised he would never do that again. But the pain of losing my mom, the guilt of abandoning me, even if it was just for three days, weakened his self-control."

The more I listened, the more I got sucked into his story, and the more I got sucked in, the more it affected me. In many ways, his fate was far worse than mine. The thing I feared the most was loneliness. He had to fear his own unpredictable father.

"When the next full Moon came, he was inside the house. All shutters were closed, all curtains pulled, but the wolf blood in him answered the beckoning of the Moon. Just before his body and his conscious mind gave in, he ordered me to run. I stormed out the door, wise enough not to look over my shoulder. The cold air nearly froze me to the bone but I kept on running. He was faster."